


The lioness

by RileyValentino



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers, Original Work
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Best Friends, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Strong Female Characters, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-16
Updated: 2019-02-16
Packaged: 2019-10-29 13:04:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17808482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RileyValentino/pseuds/RileyValentino
Summary: "I'm sorry." His eyes moved from the bloodied top to Ann and back. "I'm terribly sorry. I don’t know what to say. ""Arthur, I got you the Number of Alcoholics Anonymous," Ann mumbled after a few seconds of silence.





	The lioness

Ann walked down the long dark corridor, which had neither windows nor decent lighting with her heart pounding. Instead of a police officer who accompanied her, she was sent with an approximate description in the direction of drunk cells. It was Saturday night, and hell was going on in London.

An uneasy feeling came over her when she saw an uniformed man standing guard in front of a door. He was not pleased to to hold this position, and gave her a scowl as she approached him.

  
"Name?" He whispered.

"Arthur Kirkland."

The officer watched her as he brought out the keyring on his belt.  
"He was pretty annoying. Although he’s a handful, it took three security officers to keep him under control," the man said casually as he glanced through the narrow window at eye level. "Is he your boyfriend?"

"No, my boss." Ann smiled nervously and cleared her throat. Actually, that was none of his business, but she wanted to avoid making more trouble than necessary. Arthur had already made enough trouble for two. "I'll demand a promotion."

Unperturbed, the guard shrugged and let Ann into the cell, where Arthur was already lying on a simple bunk with his face in his hands. Apparently he was so lost in his thoughts that he had not noticed his friend and her conversation with the officer.

"Hello, sunshine," Ann greeted him mockingly, but she didn’t smile as usual. Her words made Arthur wince. He really looked awful. His clothes were tattered in some places, as if he hadn’t just once had contact with the asphalt.

"My head," the Briton groaned in agony, reluctantly raising his head. He blinked a few times and then raised his arm to his forehead to shield his eyes from the light. "I think it's about to burst."

"That's fine with you. I heard they seized you at Heathrow Airport when you tried to hop on the next best plane to Germany while being ridiciously wasted." Her voice dripped with disapproval. "I honestly don’t know why I deserve you, Arthur."

Not only was she disappointed with him, she was practically shaking with rage. The uncertainty was gone, bringing feelings up that she had oppressed for long.

"Do you know how pathetic you are? Not only that you've already done enough shit this week, no, you always surpass yourself. I don’t understand how anyone can be so irresponsible after saying it’s going to be better." Ann's cheeks glowed, she was sure that her face was now in competition with her red hair colour.

How gladly she would have grabbed him and gave him the slap he obviously deserved, but she wasn’t like her father. She would never do physical harm to anyone for their misconduct, either with a beer bottle or with her own fists.

"Stand up! I'm not going to let you out of my sight,” she demanded, only now realizing she was screaming at him, as he flinched again and held his head.

He hissed, but didn’t contradict her and rose with a slight dangling towards the wall. His sense of balance started and he could catch himself just without literally plunging even deeper than he already was.

Ann paid the full penalty and took Arthur's personal possessions into custody so that she wouldn’t lose him again. Without his wallet, she hoped anyway, he wouldn’t get very far.

About half an hour after all the paperwork was settled, both sat in a taxi on the way to Ann's apartment. They went silent. Arthur only occasionally made sounds that were a sign of life on the one hand, and a testimony of his torment on the other. It was five in the morning, when Ann was rudely awakened as the police called her. Now it was seven.

Apparently Arthur had stated her in his intoxication as an emergency contact.

She would never have left him alone, but Ann insisted she could finally put an end to Arthur's stupidity. Only a week ago, she said he was reasonably responsible and would look at things soberly, but in the last few days she had come to know pages she couldn’t handle very well. She was in love with a damn alcoholic. Again.

Arthur stank of vomit, sweat, and alcohol, so even the taxi driver kept glancing into the rearview mirror, anxiously waiting for Arthur to vomit in his seat at any moment. The blond Briton had vehemently refused a bag and was staring out of the window where London's nocturnal lights whizzed by.

When she got home, she sent Arthur under the shower, because he looked almost worse under the lamp of her hall than before. He had a little scratch over his right eyebrow, which was red and bloodstained. His face was covered with dirt and sweat.

She locked her apartment door just in case Arthur wanted to steal away while she smoked her well-earned cigarette on the balcony.

It was cold and wet. She was tired and annoyed. Let her gaze wander over the neighborhood houses.  
Arthur had gotten it right, she knew that now. But she could not understand why he needed alcohol to solve his problems. Especially since his problems only got worse. She didn’t understand the logic behind it, but presumably there was none.

When Arthur, after what felt like an eternity, joined her in the wide clothes of her ex-boyfriend, which she had never thrown away, he seemed even more pathetic to her. Red, swollen eyes in a face that was actually very attractive, watched her. The sweater, which had its best times behind it, made Arthur appear slender and sad. The wound on his forehead had begun to bleed again and he wiped his blood away with his sleeve, only to notice it with panic in his eyes.

"I'm sorry." His eyes moved from the bloodied top to Ann and back. "I'm terribly sorry. I don’t know what to say. "  
"Arthur, I got you the Number of Alcoholics Anonymous," Ann mumbled after a few seconds of silence.

Arthur's eyes widened as if to protest, but he pressed his lips together. Apparently he knew his chances were bad.

Of course she could not force him to do that. She already knew that feeling. Helplessness. Not being able to save the people she loved from the misery they chose. Tears welled up in her eyes. She felt she was always in second place in competition with alcohol. As with her father and ex, too.

"All right, I'll go. Promise." He tried to smile, but it faded quickly.

  
"I'm not going to ask what you thought. I realize you have to see Alfred again at any cost," Ann said, avoiding her boss's gaze. It wasn’t the feelings for the handsome Briton, but she felt that her past was ahead of her. All the mistakes she had made were all too present. "Do you think you can fight for him? Sober, I mean? That you can acknowledge your mistakes before him and yourself? That you get your ... alcohol problem under control? "

She heard him take a deep breath. Then another brief silence followed.

"I will do everything in my power to convince him that I deserve a second chance. By being worthy and not making the same mistakes over and over again. I want to get my life under control and no longer stand in my own way, Ann. "

"Artie, I have no idea if you're just telling me what I want to hear, or if you really mean what you're saying. But if the latter is true, I stand by you and will do anything to reach your goal. That means, I’ll accompany you to Germany and enable you to meet Alfred. I will mediate between you, if necessary. Because he is a really nice guy who deserves to be loved. And you too. "Ann felt the tears fall and her voice fail, but Arthur didn’t say a word about it.

Instead, he asked, "Why ... are you doing this for me?"

"You probably don’t remember it very well because you were too drunk, but I told you a few months ago that I loved you. And by that I don’t mean the kind of love that you have for sibling, but ... presumably the way you love Alfred. The self-destructive kind of love that drives you through London in the middle of the night to get that drunken idiot out of the drunk cell just to keep him safe." Ann wiped her damp cheeks with the back of her hand, then cleared her throat, "Don’t say anything, Artie. Make sure you never crew it up again as in the last 12 hours. "

"I-"Arthur paused. His mouth stopped open in amazement. "How can you ... love someone like me and not going bonkers? I only know for a few hours that I love Alfred, for sure and it almost drove me crazy. "

"I'm a lioness, Artie. By nature a strong fighter." She tilted her head and put her hands on her hips to give what she thought was a compelling figure.

"Like a superheroine. That's what I've always held and admired you for." Arthur smiled. An advance, Ann thought. She felt her cheeks burn. Embarrassed, she scratched her forehead and laughed loudly to cover the uncertainty.

"Do not get sentimental, okay? At some point you're on your own, Artie. "  
Arthur nodded knowingly and cleared his throat. "Shall we go in? It's- "  
"Cold? "Ann finished, cocking her head.  
"Yeah."

She watched Arthur settle down on her sofa, staring at the ceiling. There was something in his melancholy gaze that she hadn’t noticed for a long time: the will to fight. And hope.

His beautiful green eyes, which seemed so clever and experienced, were literally shining. Maybe he wasn’t such a terrible lot, she thought quietly to herself.


End file.
